[nba.com postgame interview] Yao himself admits he needs more touches

he had a few open looks when the ball swung from the left elbow to the weak side and yao flashed to the middle, he would have a second of excellent positioning. however it's quite hard for me to say without seeing a replay of the game whether the pass was an easy pass or not because help defenders are obviously aware of it.

regardless i thought we did a decent job of moving the ball around in the first 3 quarters but a bad job towards the end of the fourth quarter. it seemed that the philosophy was to iso aaron brooks off of a switch (which im fine with as his scored that nifty lefty reverse) but it seemed like no one else on the team knew what the play call was and as a result they just stood there watching him.

i think yao will get a few more touches next game but unless you just dont watch the games you'll see that yao has probably made the biggest impact on this series out of any single player in terms of affecting what goes on on the floor. its probably frustrating for yao to get only 7 shots against other bigs that he's confident that he can beat. it looks like he rushed a few shots when he did have the ball because he was out of rhythm. i do still think the offense made some strides last night so heres hoping for continued improvement.

 

I remember at one point in the game Yao sealed his man off and had great position. But Artest had a bad passing angle and couldn't get it to him.

 

Basically, the Blazers are not going to let Yao beat them - so the rest of the Rockets get to play 4 on 3.

It's up to the team to exploit those odds.


Last night we saw von wafer and a few other guys really play terribly.

Decision making was awful - our inexperienced players almost lost the game.

 

Did Yao really say that?

 

don't believe him. What he said is just sh!!t. I watched all post-game interviews last night, but didn't see he said that.

 

pick n' pop with Yao Ming, how hard is that? He is literally money around the ft area and anywhere from that distance. After Yao makes a few jumpers using that play they could run a pick n roll inside with Yao for easy layups/dunks. You can't have Yao on the low post all the time.

 

First let me say the rockets won. Now this is where the hate will come and like always, I could care less. Lowry and battier tried to give yao a lead pass on the blocks and yao couldn't pick his feet off the floor. Both passes are turnovers to the passer even if its yao fault. Also in the 3rd qt with oden battling yao, he got the ball single coverage and shot 3 fadeaways with 1 being blocked. At the 7:44 mark in the 3rd, Yao was grabbing his shorts and gasping for air.

Now we can all say or say we saw yao had his man pinned, but when u have to's in post entry passes because of yao, u get hesitant. Yao despite what some may say had a huge part in that win last night. Of course everyone wants to score, but what yao did last night was keep his head up, played aggressively despite not scoring much. Without those 3 blks, the rockets might lose the game. If you really look at it, yao didn't play well in the regular seasn vs the blazers and rox stll wo and shouldve swept them. This trend tells me game was production was more fluke than trend. If they're going to give our pf's 30 ppg, or let brooks avg 20, they will win the battle and lose the war vs houston. Personally, im glad we have more than 4 people scoring in a playoff game.

 

On ESPN, Lowry passed the ball to Yao on the corner, and Yao did not catch it, and then Rich talked to him when he was walking into the bench. Do not know what he had said, but my impression is that our coach prefers to play the guard orientation's game, which is the way he used to coach his players in Kings, and the reason that he likes Brooks very much. Without Yao's touch, the rockets lost one game, and win another one closely, Portland's players get more confidence right now, next game could be more difficulty.

 

What do you mean for him to establish the position? For 10 seconds? He constantly established his position but just for perhaps only 0.5 second. The problem is our guys need to pass the ball to him in time. No one can establish position for 10 second unless he is K Brown as no one cares about him.

 

Five players took more shots than Yao. Five players.

 

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Rockets_Take_21_Series_Lead_A-310872-34.html

 

Leeb, you are sometimes just incredible. I am glad you saw those 2 lead passes too, especially the one from Lowry. That one went out of bounds, while Yao extended himself, still couldn't touch it with fingertips. You claim that's Yao's fault, while Lowry was taken out by RA IMMEDIATELY after that pass. Rick held Lowry and talked to him over this. But it's always Yao's fault, as long as he's not as mobile as Dream.

By the way, I am still waiting for those who claim Yao can't catch a lob pass, to show me ONE SINGLE clip from game 2 or game 3, that anyone threw a lob pass to Yao while he was single-fronted by Oden. You can join the club as well.

 

Damn, I feel sorry for Yao after seeing that post game interview. He seems down, really down... Come on Rockets, give him the ball and please look for him.

 

I think a big problem is not only does Yao not give the passer much time to make an entry pass (some have said .5 a second, which by the way, is terribly short), but he won't consistently get open in either the same areas or same times while he is being fronted. None of the Rockets ever know if and when the guy will get open, and whenever he is open, it's only for such a limited amount of time. That's why you see us running into such bad shots at the end of the shot clock some times.

 

Once again ur taking it personal. The lowry pull wasn't a pull because he was coming out anyway. Now all of a sudden lowry, who on this board claim is a good passer, throws the ball away. I unlike some understand yao's weaknesses and strong points. You're right he extended his arms, but he didn't move his feet. I know at 7'6 300 lbs is hard to move in a quick fashion and that's part of the problem when u try to have a offense centered around yao.

Yao is like the apple 2c from the 80's. It was a great computer, very user friendly and had the original "windows", but ibm allowed the replication of their machine and the creation of windows and the easy access for software made the ibm type pc the thing to have. Businesses as well as educational institutions and regular people chose this machine. Part of being good or great is being easily accessible. That why yao only have short stretches of greatness. He's always good, but u don't sink or swim with good. So when teams do what portland did, u don't run ur head into the brick wall. Sooner or later, portland will free him up and yao will be ready. Until then, the rox just needs to keep playing.

 

JVG would know as well as anyone what Yao can and can't do, and he's not one to criticize Yao without good reason. He said throughout the telecast that Yao is not good at catching lobs.

I think I'll trust him on that.

 

Exactly right, we have to make Portland pay for playing this kind of defense. Does it do any good trying to force the ball to Yao, when two defenders are all over him? No, usually that results in a turnover. I went to the game and keyed on watching Yao. He got to where he wouldn't even try to free himself from the defenders. He would go to his spot and then start wrestling the Blazer defenders. I'm sure he got exhausted, but he needs to move with his feet. Toward the end of the game, he just stayed on one side and became a stationary decoy.

 

He is NOT money in the ft area. As JVG has said, he is an excellent ft shooter but a below average jump shooter from that area. Remember during RA's first year where everyone was b****ing about Yao taking too many jumpers? And remember is lower FG % that was corrected by putting him in the low block again? If Yao developed a consistent jumper ala Landry this offseason, that'd be great, but at the current moment, he is not consistent at all in that area.

 

But you don't trust Rick says how he doesn't understand why we don't get to Yao when he has the defender sealed. You don't trust Ricks says how Yao doesn't have to fight that hard, and he should let other players to come to him and find a way to get to him through movement. You don't trust JVG says we should get to Yao more. You don't trust AB and Shane admitting 6 shots are too little for Yao.

I never said Yao is great at receiving lob passes. My guess is, the chance he catches a lob pass is much higher than AB dribbles for 20 seconds and throw up a prayer against a 7 footer. Because JVG said Yao is not good at it, so we never tried even once in 3 games. Because Morey said Yao is 30% at mid-range jumper, so we don't want to do it anymore, even though Yao was 3-5?

Very selective.

 

You're being very selective in this one series where Yao has taken all of 5 shots and made 3 of them. How about the previous years, last and this where he has shot poorly from midrange hmmm?